


Several Birds With Just One Stone

by Hawkbringer



Series: Single Stone, Many Birds [1]
Category: Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (Video Game)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Background Relationships, Bracken Meadows is a Good Bro, Bracken and Min Ti, F/M, Future Fic, I left in my notes, Implied Masturbation, Leander and Nerea, M/M, Partial Nudity, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, Rough Draft, Stream of Consciousness, Tani is a good ally, Teenage King Evan, apparently that tag exists solely for mcu fandom go figure, discussion of boners, how everyone finds out, it applies tho, thank the stars for Bracken's level of chill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:34:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23506204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkbringer/pseuds/Hawkbringer
Summary: Teenage King Evan has truly fallen for his Chief Consul. He only comes to this realization some time AFTER Roland has left and he is attempting to get on with his life, attempting to make Tani his wife, since she seems to most logical choice... At least she has brain-cells enough for the both of them, and doesn't take it too personally. The others he is close to all react differently to the revelation, but King Evan will always have at least one ally in his corner. (post-canon)
Relationships: Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum & Tani, Roland Crane & Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, Roland Crane/Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum
Series: Single Stone, Many Birds [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1691350
Kudos: 5





	Several Birds With Just One Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [What was Lost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14309697) by [LadyGerbilLuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGerbilLuna/pseuds/LadyGerbilLuna). 



> written 10th may 2018.
> 
> Guess who's starting YET ANOTHER LIL SERIES GUYS - IT'S ME. Shocking, isn't it... (not) This piece functions basically to explain what the Evermore party members were up to in terms of their relationships with Evan, prior to Roland's Return in the later fics.

Tani would have heard from Evan. 

I like the headcanon from LadyGerbilLuna, author of What Was Lost, the only explicit-rated fic for Rolvan I've seen so far, where Tani and Evan 'went steady' for a while, experimented when they got older, because they were curious and familiar with each other, but they just DID NOT match sexually, but they stayed friends, and developed a better rapport for discussing emotionally-intimate topics. But no kissing. None at all. And definitely no being naked. They side-elbow each other like siblings, and perhaps that's something Evan says, naked to the waist with Tani sitting in his lap in some lounging couch sometime after Roland is gone, that first time, once the Declaration was fully signed.

He blurts out something about it being all wrong - they're family, all of them; wouldn't have just been more convenient if it had been Tani he'd fallen for and not Roland? 

And she leans back and crosses her arms and the view is /distracting/, yes, but it's also horrendously /frustrating/ because it feels a bit like trying to feed a fussy child - his prick desperate for touch, for wetness and warmth, but not /for this/. 

"What do you /mean/ by that, Evan? Now, tell me plainly! None of that hemming and hawwing you do so well in front of the others!" And they squabble and she springs off him with a huff and pulls her shirt back on and he's grateful - at least disappointed-erection is something he's used to dealing with, not refusing-to-take-the-bait-even-when-it's-literally-right-fucking-in-front-of-you-erection. She storms off before they really come to a conclusion about that, but eventually she comes back around, and when she /mentions/ it, an actual /previous argument/ of theirs, which is something she'd never done before, Evan is amazed. 

Evan marvels at the experience even as he lives it, as they hash out the awkward details and he says things more honestly with her than he's ever said to himself. The way her face freezes as she leans back in her chair to think about it, whatever it was, is terrifying, absolutely gut-wrenching, but she comes up with something /thoughtful/ afterwards, she really does. And in the end, they shake hands, reaching far out over the table and nearly breaking each other's fingers. They became /real/ siblings that day.

\---

Bracken found out just by, Evan doesn't know, bloody osmosis or something. See, he's learned a few science-y words from her over the years! She didn't really /think/ about it, when she learned it. Same way she hadn't really thought about Doloran, who is now a semi-regular visitor at Evermore's palace, more so than Nerea, who is busy preparing for the end of times, and also her new baby, but less so than Mausinger, who seems to be trying to make up for lost time as an assistant to the Tildrums, and, like, taking Roland's place or something? Evan finds it weird, the pitiful obsequiousness aimed directly /at/ him. 

Doloran's got the same thing, the same /complex/ - the ruler finding out all their actions were based on a misconception of their /own imagining/, not even on a lie someone /else/ told them. They both understand on a soul-deep level that there's no one else to blame but themselves. Doloran, at least, visits Evan with his whirlwind questions and interrogations and thirst for knowledge about the kingdom with one eye on his /own/ and /its/ prosperity. Mausinger focuses so completely on him, it's nearly suffocating. Evan doesn't feel like Mausinger could replace his father, and maybe someday he'll say that out loud. Maybe with Bracken's help.

Because Bracken doesn't find /anything/ weird. Angering, perhaps, irritating, definitely. But weird? She shrugs. 

"I deal in weirder things every day. I made a /sword/ out of a /metal cup/, kid. I have to believe anything is possible in order to bring the world forward along the path of progress. So you loved a man you met at a very vulnerable point in your life who protected you and guided you and stood by your side through almost every storm?" She ruffles his hair. "Not unusual in the least. I myself wondered for a while why I didn't fall in love with Zip..." She left him hanging, almost on purpose, the sassy auntie side of her peeking out through her knowing smirk. Evan eagerly took the bait anyway. 

"But you /learned/ why?" 

"Sure did," she explained chirpily. "When I meant Min Ti." 

Evan tilted his head. "You're... acting like that solves all the quandaries here. It really doesn't." 

"Well." She smirks again. "It did for me." 

"Huh." 

Evan still doesn't really get it, until a later date when Tani, safely squirreled away from prying eyes behind a closed door, muses out loud how precisely Doloran expected to do it with his lover, she being a giant fuck-off dragon and all. Evan takes a breath in to correct her, but then he pauses. 

Tani then says the exact thing he found himself thinking. "Well, if you can think of a way to do it with Roland, I suppose anything's possible..." Evan snapped his mouth shut and stared off into space for a few highly erotically-charged moments until Tani spotted his erection and kicked his shin under the table. "Oy! Don't go pointing that thing at me! 'S not like /I'm/ gonna be doin' it any favors, now, am I!?" 

Red-faced and hollering loudly to cover for it, Evan hustled her out of the rooms, her going willingly, and closed it on her parting shot, "Don't break it, now! Belongs to someone /else/ now, doesn't it?" 

After slamming it, half-afraid for the door's integrity as he does it, Evan slid down the door with his back to it, hands clasped over his mouth until his butt reached the floor. Then he shoved a hand beneath his trousers and didn't move from the floor for a good half-hour after that.

\---

So Tani kept it from Batu; Bracken had put it so far out of her mind, she never mentioned it to /anyone/. Leander was restrained when he learned of Evan's predilection, if he ever /did/. He walked out calmly, internally wracked with disgust, which threw Evan for a loop, more used to verbal sparring with Tani and Lofty, who'd both tried to fill in the gap as Chief Consul in Roland's absence, and did a fairly good job of it by yur, as Lofty liked to say, but it was obvious they just weren't the same.

\---

A few of the Seers who had come to live in Evermore remarked on it, though Evan swore them to secrecy, and even paid off one or two who had Seen more than they'd wanted to. (I'm thinking that young one relative of Auntie Martha's who's good at Higgledies, and perhaps the beautiful dogfolk seer from Goldpaw. Not sure how either of them would react. Both would probably not turn DOWN hush money...)


End file.
